Was Slavery Bad?

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Native Lampod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
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Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome home, y'all's Episode ninety three of Native Lamb Pod.
I am your host, uh here with my co host y'all.
Like when I say that, people I know, I'd.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Be like, I am your host here with my subjects.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
And ain't nobody coming to see you?

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Otis we're just gonna talk to you.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Mean to say it like that, we are your three
co hosts. That's probably a better way to say it.
We are your three co hosts, Tiffany Cross, Angela Rii,
and Andrew Gillham. I also feel like we always put
you last.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
Andrew.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
I don't mean to come mind men, you know boys, Okay,
all right, me and here chivalry fivlry exactly. Okay. We
had a lot to get to. What's a lot happening?
So what are we talking about?

Speaker 5 (00:47):
Well, one, we got a spectacular guest today who I
am very very excited that we'll get a chance to
talk to. She is really all knowing, all being everywhere
on all things. And that's that's you.

Speaker 4 (01:00):
Yeah, No, I said, I'm talking about you.

Speaker 6 (01:03):
Said, all being all knowing, I'm like, everywhere I hear that. Okay,
what you got, Angela, I got the same. I got
democracy on the line, and I want to talk about it.
We also are talking about uh, Donald Trump even going
at the museums. We've heard about this for some time.
He's saying, you know why we all got to focus

(01:25):
on slavery, and sadly there was a black show with
a black show host that allowed a guest to challenge
this very same thing. So we're gonna get into all
that today. What slavery bad?

Speaker 1 (01:35):
We are unfiltered on Native Lampard and I'm honestly chomping
at the bit to get into all of this. So
let's get into it. I'm so excited to bring on
this next guest. Angelo texted our group chat last night
that she had texted Madame Chryln Eiffel to join us,
and I was so thrilled that she was available to

(01:56):
join us. So let me tell you a little bit.
If you've been living under a rock and don't know.
Miss CHERYLN. Eifel is a civil rights lawyer, a founding
director of the Fourteenth Amendment Center for Law and Democracy
at the Howard University School of Law. She most recently
before that position set at the helm of the NAACP
LDF and has a long list of accolades that we

(02:18):
could exhaust the airwaves with. But I'm just thrilled to
have her here. I was honored to be there actually
when she commenced the opening of the Fourteenth Amendment for
the Center of Law and Democracy at HU. For all
you Howard people out there listening, so very thrilled to
welcome you to Native Lampa. Welcome home.

Speaker 7 (02:37):
Thank you so much. I'm really thrilled to be with
you all in Tiffany. I don't feel like I had
the chance to really thank you for being there. Meant
a lot to me that you were there for the
opening of the new Fourteenth Amendment Center at Howard Law School.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
I was thrilled to be there and thank you for
the invite. I came all the way to see you,
and I was double booked. I had a business dinner
back down town. So I was there and I was
trying to slip out, and as I was walking down
the stairs, you started talking about Elaine Arkansas, and I
turned around and took those stairs too at a time
because I did not want to miss what you had

(03:12):
to say about the slaughter that happened to black folks there,
which is very on theme with what we're talking about.
I told these guys, I told Angela and Andrew. I don't
remember what you were talking about, but you were saying
something about a precedent that you had not been taught
in law school. And you said, I mean, it's a

(03:33):
lot of lawyers here where any of you guys taught this.
And this huge section of people started clapping and you
started laughing, and you said, those are all of my
students because they had learned this important precedent from you.
So it just speaks to the leader that you have
always been. So we're thrilled to have you. And we
were talking in our group chat. I want to let
you know I didn't know I'm an attorney too. Angela's

(03:54):
our resident attorney. But our friend Aaron Haynes said, listen,
if you watch Law and Order, then you have a
fair amount of wisdom. So I'm going to call myself
an attorney, but I will lay three.

Speaker 5 (04:06):
Years of school years of service.

Speaker 6 (04:09):
They actually have something. They have something for this. It's
called the unauthorized practice of the law, and I think that.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
I yield the florid to the actual attorney Alo and
I will listen and learn.

Speaker 6 (04:25):
Oh Man, well, you know how much we love you, Shrilyn.
I was sharing with the team earlier. We have a
gazillion stories about moments with you where you have set
the tone and have been very clear. And I was
reflecting on our time in Baltimore for the State of
the People National Assembly, where you really were giving us
a very clear indication of where we are as a democracy.

(04:46):
And I would love for you to talk about where
you think we are now. We're seeing the Smithsonian takeover,
We're seeing the National Guard coming in from other states
into d C to harass our children. We're of course
seeing this crazy situation unfold in Texas with redistricting. I'd
love to know if you were giving democracy a grade
right now in the United States, what would it be.

Speaker 7 (05:09):
Oh, We're at a D, for sure, We're at a D.

Speaker 8 (05:12):
We are.

Speaker 7 (05:14):
Really right now fighting over the remnants. We're fighting over
maintaining the found enough of the foundations that we could
build something new on. I mean, I mean those of
us who care about democracy, who want a different country.
I have one of the reasons I wanted to start
this Fourteenth Amendment Center was because I want to be
in the twenty four to seven work of thinking through, strategizing,

(05:38):
and preparing for the building of a new American democracy.
And but but to build it, I recognize you need
some of the stuff. You need some things in the
foundation that you can build on. And we're getting perilously
low on the on the integrity of the foundations that

(06:00):
we would rebuild on. If we were to have a
chance to rebuild. Will we have a chance to rebuild?
There's no guarantees there, and it's a ways off. And
so the process that we're in right now has to
be one in which we are ever thinking towards the
future and we're also thinking about our survival. A key

(06:21):
piece is how do we survive this period with our
integrity intact, our dignity intact, our families intact, and our
communities intact, because that's who we are on this continent
we are We're always trying to figure out how we
survived this thing and make it to the next thing. Now,
we want to thrive, for sure, but I want to

(06:44):
be very clear that the opportunities for that will be
very narrow in the coming years for a broad set
of people. And that means it is incumbent on those
of us who have been beneficiaries of the sacrifices that
were made early on among our ancestors, to take up

(07:10):
our obligation to do the same for those that come
after us. But right now, you know, democracies are made
up of citizens of people, but also critically made up
of institutions that hold democracy together. And the worst of
this moment, it's not that forty percent, maybe forty five

(07:31):
percent of Americans are fully okay with an authoritarian takeover
of our country, and maybe another ten percent are prepared
to just watch an authoritarian takeover of our country. That's bad.
But what will make this democracy completely crumble if it does,

(07:55):
is the absolute collapse of democratic institute. What are democratic institutions, Well,
there's no healthy democracy you can point to in the
world that doesn't have a strong and free and independent media,
that doesn't have a strong, free and independent civil service,

(08:16):
that doesn't have a strong, free and independent university system,
that doesn't have a strong business community that functions with integrity,
that doesn't have a legal system that upholds the rule
of law, and in which legal professionals are held to

(08:38):
a high standard of performance. There's no healthy democracy in
the world that doesn't have a strong and independent court system.
And if you tick off those lists for all of
us right now, every single one of the core institutions
of democracy in this country has failed. And that, more
than anything else, is why we are where we are today.

(09:02):
Systems of government are not just about who gets elected
in one election. It's a system. It sustains itself over
multiple elections. And no one person, no one person, especially
a person of Donald Trump's caliber, who, for all his bluster,
didn't know shit from Shinola about politics before twenty sixteen.

(09:24):
He knew about manipulation, he knew about narrative, he knew
about image making, he knew about white supremacy and how
to appeal to it, but he did know shit from
Shinola about politics and government. No one person with that
diminished knowledge can come in and hijack the most powerful

(09:47):
and wealthy democracy in the world unless it is already
in trouble. And that's writing this book now called Is
This America? And that's what the book is about. It's
about why we were already in trouble. And you all
know this, you know, because it's all the people who
think the world was perfect when Obama was president or
Clinton was president or Biden was president, you know. And

(10:11):
I've been a civil rights lawyer for thirty five years,
never been out of work. It has not been perfect,
but we had institutions attempting to hold the line. And
now we have seen the biggest and most wealthy law
firms in the world collapse. We've seen the biggest and
most revered universities collapse. We've seen the media just utterly

(10:34):
freaking collapse. And you can't save a democracy, and you
can't have democracy unless you have an institutional structure to
uphold it.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
All right, guys, don't go anywhere. We got to pay
some bills. But on the other side of this break,
we're getting right back to it.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
That's powerful. That's extremely powerful and sobering.

Speaker 5 (11:07):
And I didn't expect anything otherwise from you, Sherilyn. Your
comments drawed of mind two thoughts. One, how very very
fragile democracies are. There's no wonder why so many societies
choose autocrats, monarchies, a strong man as leaders, because for
the average person is the easier route. They don't have

(11:29):
to work to maintain it. It does rest on an individual,
a set of individuals, a family, But in this case
the fragility is like front and center. But the second
thing you made me think about, which was actually the
first thing, was something we all know well, which is
you never let a good crisis go to waste. And

(11:51):
when you began talking about envisioning and dreaming, me about
what you build on top of when things are lost?
All is lost in the slate is almost cleared. There
are some founding and important building blocks. But when you
start to stay think about what it looks like to
scale this thing? Are there some imagineive thoughts that you

(12:13):
feel prepared to share with us around Man, if this system.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
Is leveled, what do we build back? Or what never existed?

Speaker 5 (12:22):
Do we now make some allowance to exist so that
we can all be on the way to thriving.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
Any thoughts come to mind to you? For I know
the answer is yes.

Speaker 7 (12:30):
No, Yeah, thoughts are I think about. I'm sorry I
shouldn't be talking over you. I'm thinking about a lot
of things. And first of all, Andrew's just wonderful to
see you again, and I so wish you with the
Governor of Florida. But amen, But uh, you know, I
was just writing the first chapter of my book, which
is about something we lost and that we lost as

(12:53):
a result. Most of most of the things that we
lose in this country that are essential to democracy, we
begin to lose because because of white supremacist ideology. And
one of the things we lost is our commitment to
an investment in you know, what we call public goods.
Public goods are those things and those places that a society,

(13:19):
a government ensures are in place that the public engages
with and can enjoy and can access together. And these
public goods play an incredibly powerful role in helping unify
people in a democracy and helping them feel they're part
of the same project, if you know what I mean. So,

(13:42):
for example, I love the post office. I know that's
old school, but bear with me. You know, the post
office is a fundamentally democratic institution.

Speaker 9 (13:53):
Right.

Speaker 7 (13:54):
You put that one stamp on your envelope, and it
goes to California, it goes to Florida, it goes to
New York. I put on the same stamp you put on.
You put on the same stamp Tiffany puts on. Tiffany
puts on the same stamp Angela puts on, and we
all can communicate with each other using this service that
is provided by the government. When you walk into a

(14:15):
neighbor neighborhood and you see the postal truck park there right,
you know that's a neighborhood. In fact, we don't even
see it anymore. It's like air, but it is a
It's a symbol of something important. It's a symbol that
the government is there is servicing that area. One of
the reasons when people say, oh, it all needs to
be privatized, one of the reasons the post office is

(14:36):
so important is because even services like FedEx still use
the post office for what we called the last mile.
FedEx is not coming up that mountain to deliver nothing.
What they do is they deliver it to the closest place,
and the United States Postal Service, which is required to
serve every home right and every edifice, takes that package

(15:00):
the last mile. So that means people in rural America
know that they're going to get their Social Security checks.
They know they can wait on that letter from their
child or their grandchild. This is a powerful and important
service and exists all over the world. If you've ever
stood in the line several weeks prior to Christmas with

(15:20):
your packages waiting to mail them out in the post office.
And you think about the conversations that happen in that line,
right and all the you know, when is it going
to arrive, and where's it going and all that stuff.
All of those are the things that knit us together.
And the post office is just one example. And we
should remember that the post office, which was created in

(15:41):
the seventeen i want to say eighties. Ben Franklin was
the first postmaster, was one of the earliest places after
the Civil War where black people could get federal jobs.
And it's one of the reasons why as there was
the resistance to reconstruction and violence, postal workers would the
ones very often attacked by remaining Confederates in the South.

(16:05):
The post office symbolized the federal government. The postal worker
symbolized the federal government, and to be a black postal
worker said something incredibly powerful because it meant that the
United States government trusted you with the money, the mail,
all of this official business. You know how if you
know you always see the lines that if you if
you ruin mail, you know it's a federal offense. It

(16:27):
is right that it's a job of importance because they
speak for the government. They are part of the federal government. Well,
what happened after Brown versus Board of Education is that slowly,
but surely, and not even that slowly, they're developed a
narrative about public goods. Prior to Brown, we had public

(16:52):
goods and they were not controversial. White people loved them too.
White people loved public housing. They are the ones who
were public housing was originally built for. And they benefited
amazingly from the New Deal programs that were imposed in
order to address and deal with the Great Depression. So
the Works Projects Association, the NLRB, which the Fifth Circuit

(17:14):
has just said it's unconstitutional, the National Labor Relations Board,
all of the things that came through the New Deal.
But here's how they maintained white support for those public goods.
They carved black people out of them. So Southern segregationists
were very clear that in fact, the South was the

(17:36):
greatest beneficiary of New Deal programs. But what they wanted
to make sure was that their power structure remained unchanged.
That's right, and Frederick Franklin Dellana Roosevelt was willing to
cut those deals because he needed the southern segregationists in
Congress to support the legislation to bring the New Deal forward.

(17:56):
So that's why black people didn't have access to Social
Security when the Social Security Act was passed in nineteen
thirty four, because what they carved out of the Social
Security Act were agricultural workers and domestic workers. Now in
nineteen thirty four, what were most black people doing. Most

(18:17):
black people were sharecropping or were working as domestics in
the homes of white people in the South. So black
people were carved out of Social Security and I think
not actually added to it until nineteen fifty two. I
want to say it was Eisenhower. And so public goods

(18:39):
were fine so long as they were not being given
on an equal basis with white people.

Speaker 4 (18:45):
Right.

Speaker 7 (18:46):
Segregated public housing, that was another when public housing was
being built in the thirties and forties, it was you
know FDR's aides who said, we have to acquiesce to
Southerners who want public housing to be segregated, and that's
why they were segregated public housing. All of the buildings
that were built to work on New Deal projects were segregated,

(19:08):
and the black housing was always substandard. So while there
was that pat that understanding that if we have public goods,
if we have public schools, black people are going to
get the underfunded public schools and white people will get
the state of the art schools. Right Central High School
in Little Rock was seen as the high school. It
was seen as you know, I've read accounts of white

(19:30):
students know there was a fish pond at the bottom
of the stairs. I mean it was. They were very
proud of that school. The same thing with Central High
School in Washington, d C. They were very proud of it.
Well after Brown versus Board of Education, when the Supreme
Court said first in terms of education, it has to
be shared on an equal basis and there has to
be integration, what was the first reaction and response? The

(19:55):
first reaction and response was to withdraw from partiesipation in
public goods keeping their kids home from school. You know,
you know, you can decide which one is worse, the
kids howling outside Central High School in Little Rock to
keep nine black students out, or no kids being in

(20:15):
school with Ruby Bridges in New Orleans so that she's
in the whole school by herself. Or you can decide
that it's Prince Williams County, Virginia closing the public schools
for five years rather than integrate and building segregation academies
to educate their kids. Now, you can pick from among

(20:36):
those which one you think is the worst, but they
all amount to the same thing, the withdrawal from what
is the most important public good in any democracy, and
that is public schools K through twelve. Why because that
is where we inculcate the values of citizenship and what
it means to live in this country. And we do it,

(20:56):
we should be doing it together and they know that
as well. So our whole relationship to public schools that
changed came out of this, came out of Brown. And
then when the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four
said that all public goods had to be shared on
an equal basis, then we saw the withdrawal from all
the other public goods. And by the time we got

(21:18):
to the nineteen eighties with Ronald Reagan, it was an
ordinary to exalt that which is private and to denigrate
that which is public. If I say public transportation, the
image in your mind has black people in it. If
I say public schools, the image in your mind has
black and brown people in it. This is when we

(21:39):
get the gated community. This is when we get the
backyard pool. All of our communities had pools. Baltimore had
public pools. We all have public We have them again
now thanks to Brandon Scott, but we all had public pools.
We had public golf courses in all our cities. And
when the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four passed

(22:00):
and was signed by President Johnson, this act included a
provision called Title six, which says that federal funds cannot
support state and local programs that engage in discrimination. It
was actually created to force compliance with brown, to force
schools to comply with brown. People like me were bussed
to school in the immediate years after the Civil Rights

(22:21):
Act of nineteen sixty four, because that's when northern school
districts who had kind of stayed out of the immigration
the integration conversation around school but who were also segregated, right,
not segregated by statute but by custom, they started integrating
their schools because they got nervous and afraid about the
Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four. So when you
hear about kids getting bussed, Black kids getting bussed to school,

(22:44):
in the North Boston, Chicago, Denver, New York. It is
usually after nineteen sixty four. Right, So I first went
to school nineteen sixty eight. So now you have this
rule that but it's not only schools, it's you can't
get any federal funds if your parks department, right discriminates
and keeps black kids out of the pool.

Speaker 4 (23:04):
Right.

Speaker 7 (23:04):
So now everything has to integrate. And that's when we
see the full on white withdrawal. We see white flight,
white people moving out of cities, right. We see the
decimation of public goods like parks and swimming pools. We
see white pull out of public schools and thus the
defunding of public schools. We see all of that, and

(23:25):
that is you cannot build a society that is multi
racial as a democracy like that. And let me give
the US a little bit of credit here for the
for the you get points for the difficulty of the project.
We're doing the most difficult project. There is no other
country in the world that we're pointing to and saying, see,

(23:46):
they got the multiracial democracy thing, right. It's just not
a thing.

Speaker 9 (23:51):
Right.

Speaker 7 (23:52):
And that's why when people say, oh, but look at
the criminal justice system in Norway right because they're all white.
And when you have a in which people are not
different from one another, there's built in trust, there's built
in trust. We're fighting against a very different tide, the
tide of a place of differences, which is part of

(24:14):
what makes this country. If you want to say great, great,
is that there's all this difference. But all that difference
means the project of holding together that population in a
democracy is extremely challenging. And so my even look like
I'm answering Andrew's question, my recognition for the future is

(24:35):
we have to be actually especially careful and intentional about
creating public goods that force us together. We actually have
to be thoughtful about that. I had this section my
book where I talk about public parks because that's what
we did as kids, you know, our family. There were

(24:56):
ten kids in my family, so we did not go
on vacations, but we did packed that hamper, you know,
with the chicken and the sandwiches and whatever, and we
went to every public park. We went to Bear Mountain,
we went to Sunken Meadow, we went to Wildwood State Park.
That's what we would do on Labor Day, on Memorial Day,
on these holidays, and just the experience in a public
park in a place like New York, right where you

(25:17):
put your blanket, you know, nobody wants to be two
up in somebody's Like you're learning these lessons about accommodation
without actually learning a lesson like a school, right, And
so you learn. And you're watching people, right, and the
people next to you are making food that's very different
than yours, right, and they're treating their kids differently than

(25:38):
you treat yours. And something's on the grill over here
that smells really good, and you want to go over
there and look at it, and you're you know, your
older sisters are saying, get out, go over here, get
leave those people alone, but you want to see. You know,
what's that meat they put on the grid? I've never
seen that. But like, there's all this stuff that's happening
in a public space, and you are just without having
to have an explicit conversation up accommodating the differences around you.

(26:03):
You get on the New York City subway. We don't
talk about it, but there is an understanding. As you're
holding the pole, right, people's hands are different places on
the pole. You don't put your hand over somebody's you
know what I mean. There is a whole accommodation that
happens when we're together. It's very different you all sitting

(26:25):
in four us, all sitting in four different studios right now,
or if we were in an auditorium together and we
were sitting next to each other, because we would very quietly,
without even talking about it, decide whose arm went on,
which armrest right, And we might say, oh, Andrew, you're
the tallest, so you still on the end, so your
leg could be.

Speaker 4 (26:43):
There's all kinds of things we.

Speaker 7 (26:44):
Do just in the process of being together. That's actually
not about who did you vote for. It's actually not
about race. It's actually it's not about any of that.

Speaker 4 (26:54):
And we just do it.

Speaker 7 (26:56):
Without those opportunities, without those experiences, it is very difficult
to begin to knit together a population. I understand this
is a small example, but it is. If you scale
it up, it becomes university, right, it becomes public housing,
it becomes all of those places where the stakes are high.

(27:18):
And so when you see this effort, this unrelenting effort,
since it started against affirmative action and now against DEI right,
it is a deliberate counter to creating context that compel
us to be together and to see one another, to

(27:38):
see one another's humanity in an environment that asks all
of us, as of all of us, the same thing,
and where we have the opportunity to bring the same
thing to the table. So one thing is thinking about
how we would restructure and this is even architectural. That's
why it's a multi disciplinary project. What do we want
our cities to look like? What do we want our

(28:00):
towns to look like? I believe the schools should be
the center of the town, right, everything you know about
a community you should know by visiting their elementary school,
their high school. You should just know whether they value kids,
whether they value sports, What did they believe about green space,
What did they believe about food and access? What did

(28:20):
they you know, all of that stuff should be So
we were even thinking about, you know, we were getting
infrastructure money. That's what I was thinking about. I mean
I pushed very hard but with the Secretary of Education
and the Biden administration as they were making their plans
that we needed school infrastructure money.

Speaker 4 (28:36):
We needed to be.

Speaker 7 (28:37):
Able to build new schools so that we could see
it differently and pull kids together differently, you know, So
it requires that kind of thinking. Obviously, I have lots
of thinking about law and my profession. I have lots
of thinking about the Supreme Court, which is I'm no
longer interested in the conversation about the personnel. I'm interested
in a conversation about structuring a Supreme Court that could

(28:58):
make sense.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
And obviously I'm glad you brought up the Supreme Court,
where unfortunately our time is always so tight on this podcast,
so we mainly have time for another one or two questions,
so I just want to try to get one in.
You said a lot there one you you gave a
shout out to Brandon Scott. I just want to let
our listeners and viewers across the country know that is
the mayor of Baltimore, who you gave a shout out to.

(29:22):
You also bringing up the courts, because I have a
lot of lay persons questions about what we see happening here,
and I want to take us to the very current
situation of what's happening in Texas. And I was asking
Angela earlier in the week about keeping the Cole Collier, who's,
of course the state representative in Texas, who is and

(29:46):
from my lay person's perspective is being held captive.

Speaker 10 (29:52):
She is.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
It looks like false imprisonment to me, and so Angela
and our friend Brittany Packnet Cunningham were s to me,
you know, language around the rules for their legislature, which
they were trying to explain to me is essentially treated
like the law. Sunny Hassen, another fellow lawyer, saying, this
is what exists until a court says it doesn't. I

(30:13):
keep saying, I do not believe the courts will hold
I just and everything that you laid out from a
capitulating media landscape that we see to the third co
equal branch of government, I don't see the courts holding.
So even if this case were to go before a
court saying yes, you cannot lock this black woman up,

(30:34):
what is wrong with you all? I don't. I think
it can just escalate, perhaps all the way to the
Supreme Court. So what And it sends a message, I think,
to the country, to other potential Republican governors, that it
is okay to we already see it's we've declared it's
okay to kidnap people off the street without due process.
Mass men can come and snatch any one of us

(30:56):
we've already declared that. And so this is very scary
to me that we're almost normalizing this, that we're talking
about it. I see on cable news they present it
like it's fodder, like well, what do you think about
this instead of outrags like oh my god, where is
the country going? I'm just curious your thoughts on that.
And I know had another question, So I don't want
you to take up to ms CI. I'll be able

(31:17):
to get to her question.

Speaker 7 (31:18):
I'll do it real fast. I think you hit, you know,
the nail on the head. It is true that you know,
this stuff will be litigated and there'll be whatever a
court says. It'll be first whatever the highest court in
Texas says, uh, and then it'll be what the Supreme
Court says. And I just think you hit the nail
on the head. The reason this time is so scary
is because the courts have not held. Now there are

(31:40):
the courts, and the courts, the federal district courts have
been amazing. And what has been shocking to see is
how much the Supreme Court, the majority of conservative justices
on that court, are so set on their agenda that
they are willing to disparage and pull into disrespute, ill disrespute, irrepute,

(32:03):
ill repute. The federal district court judges, right, who are
deciding things they don't like. But the Federal district court
judges are the ones who are like pulling out the
facts and figuring out exactly what happened. And so I
think you have every right to be alarmed by the
fact that the courts may not hold. And that's why

(32:23):
it was so important for people to understand the significance
of the courts. It was important for advocates like me
and others to make clear to our people why the
courts were so significant, and to make it understood, and
to make it understood in layman's terms, and to get

(32:44):
out of the whole conversation, the insider conversation about the
courts and the justices and who's an institutionalist and so
on and so forth. I've watched every Supreme Court confirmation
hearing since I was.

Speaker 5 (32:58):
Ten.

Speaker 7 (32:59):
It did right, I mean, this is this is my thing,
you know, Like, I'm so clear about it. And I
just think that we have now gotten ourselves in quite
a pickle. And I don't think there's any easy way
out of it. I think there's some things that John
Roberts will will it pumped the brakes on, but never

(33:21):
never about race. He's always been one of the leaders.
He worked in the Break and Justice Department. He was
vociferously opposed to the amendments to Section two where the
Voting Rights Act. He has always been an anti civil
rights person. So there may be other things that you know,
on an executive power that he may you know, come

(33:43):
around on. But it ain't going to be on is
section to a violation of the fourteenth and fifteenth Amendments.
It's not going to be I've become convinced it's not
going to be on birthright citizenship, like it's not going
to be anything that doesn't serve this current agenda. And
the mistake I think that many of us got too late,

(34:05):
myself included is while I knew that these I've always
said they were right wing, I did not know they
were a MAGA until the decision saying that the president
has immunity for any acts he commits while he's president,
as long as they can be deemed as official acts,
including criminal acts. Was that the beginning of the unraveling?

(34:28):
Was it that moment you know it. That was the
for hostallization. That was the crystallization that they are. I
thought so with the insurrection decision, the decision to basically
kind of stand down section three of the fourteenth Amendment,
which says, if you participated in insurrection, you can't be
on the ballot. And Colorado had removed President Trump from
the ballot in twenty twenty four, and the case went

(34:52):
to the Supreme Court and they said a lot of
things and in the end said, well, we would need
an Act of Congress, even though you have it clearly
set forth in the fourteenth Amendment.

Speaker 4 (35:01):
I thought so.

Speaker 7 (35:01):
Then because of the descent from Justices Soto, Mayor Jackson,
and Kagan, I felt their dissent. The tone of it,
the words they said was a flair. I thought they
were warning us of what was happening with their colleagues.
They weren't just saying that they were right wing. There
was some language where they said, you know, you've taken

(35:24):
a decision in order to insulate this president or any
after him like that, in order to insulate him like
just It really stuck out to me, and that's when
I first thought, like, are they telling us that Wait
a minute, right, And then we got the the immunity decision,
and that has convinced me in ways I had not

(35:46):
been convinced before. And it's frightening. It's very very frightening,
and there's no easy way out of it at all.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
But I say all of that, oh, go ahead, go ahead, I.

Speaker 7 (36:00):
Just I don't say this too so that we are
in despair and believe that there's no way out. Because,
you know, civil rights advancement, it is like a cocktail
of things. You know, we all know the different elements
that we use. You know, it's there are boycotts, and
there are stand downs, and there are general strikes, and
there are there's litigation, and there's marching, and there's protesting,

(36:24):
and there's shaming and there's educating and these are all
the elements and then you shake them all up. But
there's always something else that is completely unexpected that we
don't have any control over, that also ends up in
the mix, that moves things in ways that are unexpected.
My concern always is like, have you put all the

(36:45):
other stuff in the in the mix so that we're
ready to go when the when the when the day
x MACNA happens, When the when the secret sauce comes
from the outside to move things forward. It's not all
the secret sauce is not always great, by the way,
it's sometimes very painful. In the civil rights movement, there's
nothing that we got that didn't happen before. There was

(37:06):
some horrifyingly violent attack. We don't care.

Speaker 6 (37:10):
Then you mentioned sorry, You mentioned that you didn't want
us to be in despair. And in a special moment recently,
we were wrestling with this question we've been doing on
the podcast too, what is not under attack in this country?
And you mentioned a really special conversation you had with
Hank Sanders in Selma, and I would love for that

(37:33):
to be our partying words, to give us a little.

Speaker 4 (37:35):
Bit of hope. And so I said, we don't have
a silver lin anymore as glitter.

Speaker 7 (37:38):
And to be clear, I am always hopeful. I am
when people ask me if I'm optimistic, I'm optimistic because
I know what the end is going to be. I
understand that the struggle to get there. In that struggle,
many people will be heard. That's what infuriates me, empowers me.
And we have the right to try to minimize those
as much as possible. But I don't have any doubt,

(38:00):
any doubt of where we're going to be because we
don't fight with the same tools they fight with.

Speaker 6 (38:06):
We just don't.

Speaker 7 (38:07):
And Hank Sanders, whose civil rights activists and lawyer served
in the State House in Alabama, always says to me
that during the civil rights movement, they had all the
law and all the guns and all the dogs, and
we had our prayers, our songs, our feet, and our

(38:28):
moral sense of what was right, and we were able
to overcome them again and again. And so if we're
counting up, you know what they have and what they got,
all these Spreme Court justice they got, all this, they
got all that. That's not really how it works. We're
not going to work. We're not going to win using
their tools. We're never going to have as much money.

(38:48):
We're never going to have the weaponry or the willingness
to use it. We're never going to have all the
offices that they control. We're never going to have the
same level of political power. We are fourteen percent of
the population of the United States. We're not having it,
but we punch above our weight. There's a reason that
white people, when they do the Washington Post pole, think
that we're fifty percent of the population because we are

(39:12):
just so we saturate, because we control the culture, because
we control the narrative, because they like to look at us.
There's all kinds of little intangibles about who we are
as black people in this country that gives us power.
And when we show up in the space, when we speak,
it ruptures something, It disturbs, it troubles the waters. And

(39:36):
so we have to not think we are smaller than
we are. We shouldn't think we're bigger than we are,
for sure, but we should know that we fight with
tools that maximize our size in ways that cannot be
explained by math. You know, it's like feeding the five
thousand with some you know, however, many.

Speaker 4 (39:56):
Loaves of breads.

Speaker 7 (39:56):
Right, it's not math, it's not ma Right. There is
a spiritual power. And when we are activated and united
and believe that we are going to walk towards what
is right, it maximizes power and it disarms our opponent.

(40:17):
That's what we have to go for. It's not that
we want to fight them hand to hand and somehow
we win in hand to hand combat. No, we want
to take the knowledge, the numbers, the force, the moral force,
the demand the strategic thinking that we have and disarm them.
I'm trying to make them let their own arms down.

(40:40):
I'm trying to make them stumble first and foremost. I
don't want to fight them at full strength. I want
them to trip and fall and then we can fight.
I want them to forget something that's important. I want
them to I want them weak. Yeah, and that's the
power we have, is to disarm our enemies so that

(41:01):
we are in a better position to overcome them.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
Thank you. I feel so inadequate calling you, Sherilyn. It
feels so I don't know why. It feels so uncomfortable.
I feel like I should be saying your honor, the honorable, Yes,
her excellency, thank.

Speaker 6 (41:17):
You, profess Her excellency.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
The prophetes.

Speaker 5 (41:26):
May know this, you may know this already, but I
am a very, very verbal and expressive like a man corner.
And my colleagues warned me the muzzle so that I
wouldn't mess with your audio. And I felt like I
was going.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
To explode like a balloon all the.

Speaker 5 (41:40):
Way through this thing because bringing it as you always do.
And so I've got to adopt some of my Grandmama's
you know, church mannerisms where you know, she can't mean yeah,
you know, but thank you.

Speaker 4 (41:58):
I was on mute. Amen. I literally have to be like,
it's good.

Speaker 5 (42:04):
Overwhelming, and not just with the warnings and the forecasting
because they told us we didn't believe and I want
to hear I can't wait to read that in your book,
but but also the resilience. You're reminder of our resilience,
our punching above our weight, our endurance, and the fact

(42:26):
that we do know what the end is going to be.
Let's not pretend there's some things we do know and
it's not in a book, but it's been assured, right,
it's already been promised.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
Yeah, exactly. We have come back. We would really love
to have you back, and I hope I get to
see you in person again soon. Anytime you're doing something
at Howard I would be honored to be there and
show up. And we're so grateful to you for taking
time to join the idea we should.

Speaker 6 (42:53):
Okay, we'll do a live pod with the Fourteenth Amendment
Center to Howard Law.

Speaker 4 (42:58):
If we can do it, let's do it.

Speaker 7 (43:00):
Let's do we have the perfect in the Law library
is beautiful.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
I'm with you. Sharylin.

Speaker 7 (43:08):
We death, yeah, in the center space itself. We should
do the show. It would be amazing and the students
would absolutely love it, and we owe it to them.

Speaker 4 (43:17):
This is tough for them.

Speaker 7 (43:18):
This is tough for them and our job right now.
We have to unlock the doors they have. We have
to give them a chance to understand how this fits
in the whole thing. We have to help them.

Speaker 4 (43:27):
Understand that.

Speaker 3 (43:30):
Yourself. Until we see you.

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Yes, you doing good, Thank you, thank you Carolyn. Oh god,
that was so great, you guys. I mean, honestly, she's
so amazing. Something that I really take away from that

(43:54):
I struggle with. I still question is what is Because
she talked, she touched on this, and I appreciate her
saying like we will get through this, Like she's not
suggesting that we are in despair. I love what she
shared from with the conversation with her and Hank Sanders.
Oh my god, I think that's such a I would

(44:14):
have loved to hear it from him saying this is
all we had. It's just I feel overwhelmed. But the
thing that I'm left with is what is our red line?
And just quickly for the viewers, if you all are
as struck as we are. Please please please spread the words,
share this podcast, like subscribe, send it around because people

(44:38):
like SCHERYLN. Eiffel join because we have an audience like you,
like they literally come not to talk to us. They
can talk to us anytime, they can text us, call us,
see us, but they come to reach the people who
tune in to us. So thank you to our regular viewers,
our faithful viewers. But please do continue to spread the
word about Native lampod because we are living in service
to the liberation of of black folks and that liberates

(45:02):
everybody everywhere. So I just think, what is that red
line for a society at large? And we may have
a viewer question or comment that speaks to that. I
don't know because I didn't even get a chance to
look at all of our viewer questions, but I feel
like that red line has been crossed one hundred times.

Speaker 9 (45:18):
Hey, Andrew, Angela, and Tiffany, This is Monte from Maryland
and wanted to discuss something that Andrew kind of alluded
to a week or so ago. Trump was not able
to steal the election due to Mike Pence saying, Hey,
the Constitution will allowed allow me to do this, so
I can't. But with somebody like jd Vance sitting in
the vice presidency, what is the recourse should jd Vance

(45:41):
just say I'm not going to certify the next election.
I know there's nothing in the constitution about it because
the founders never thought we'd be here, But is there
any recourse that we have if jd Vance just following
his servitude to Trump just said I'm not going to
certify the election for blah blah blah reason. I know

(46:03):
it'll go through the courts, but is there anything standing
that says, no, this cannot happen, or no, he will
not do this or cannot do this. Just so was
anxious to get your thoughts on that. Again, thank you
for all you do and welcome home.

Speaker 5 (46:17):
I love that from Manti, and I actually didn't think
that was a strand that was going to get picked
up on, because I think we do have to drive
people to what the conclusion is. When we had on
the episode a couple of weeks ago around why it
is they're playing with the numbers in the House and
who counts the electoral votes that come in from each
states for certification. Part of that process requires that both

(46:39):
the House and the Senate, except the results as they
come in through their express vote. When it got to
the Senate, the reason why JD. Vance's vote would matter, Actually,
I'm sorry, the reason why Kamala Harris's vote mattered was
because of this closeness. She was the tie breaker in
a fifty to fifty Senate. In this case, there is
not a fifth Senate. The Republicans have the majority, they

(47:02):
don't need jdvents to break a tie, so the vice
president will be less important. And that scenario unless you
had Republicans who were actually going to say we are
not going to do that, We're going to vote to.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
Accept the results from the election.

Speaker 5 (47:17):
The vice president undoubtedly plays an important role the courts.
I think given the conversation we just had with Sherylyn
and I think most of us probably agree, there is
not a lot of hope when you look at the
Supreme Court with the conservative majority, that they would do
anything to offend a bridge wrangle the power of Donald Trump.

(47:39):
So I'm not in that. I'm hoping that won't be
a scenario. The best scenario is that we have folks
with honesty and dignity who don't steal elections. But if
they do, we've got to make sure that we got
enough of a margin that it doesn't that it doesn't
get close. And that's why this redishoting fight is so important.

(48:00):
That if they take a few seats here, convert a
few seats here, they throw us in a scenario that
a majority of members of the Congress can vote to
reject the electoral College votes that declare anybody else president
other than Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
That's really good. That was so Sometimes on this podcast,
I feel like I'm an audience member, like I'm just
listening to Sometimes you guys say things so insightful. I'm like,
oh wait, I'm on here, I should wagh in here.
But that's really good, A good way to explain it.
And look, that is a red line, you know, that
was a red It should have been a red line

(48:36):
then to highlight the Fishers in our democracy.

Speaker 4 (48:40):
So I'm Burgundy.

Speaker 6 (48:41):
And the thing though it flag, I would say, Andrew,
to the point is we don't know what the makeup
of the Senate will be after the twenty sixth election,
and so you know, if that becomes the case where
he is a trek tie breaking vote, what will he
do and what will the tech bros allow him to do?

Speaker 4 (48:57):
That should also be a mini pot this tech Borough situation.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
It's nuts and Angela.

Speaker 5 (49:02):
If you, if you, if you follow the logic of
the Court, and I know you do, it is that
they will rest with the decision of that institution as
a as a coequal branch of government. They've been willing
to allow that institution to decide what it wants to
do without checking it.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
So if they say J. D.

Speaker 5 (49:18):
Mans has a tiebreaking vote and he says reject the Constitution,
the the ballots from the States, the Court is loath
to do anything at this rate given their pattern.

Speaker 6 (49:29):
Yeah, so so on this we've been talking a lot
about a red line today. What is at stake in
terms of democracy. We had Sharylyn eifel On who's always
a sage of a sage voice and gave a prolific
history lesson which we may need to be relying upon
more as times go by. Why because we've been talking
about the Smithsonian is under attack. Lonnie Bunch just received

(49:52):
a letter from Donald Trump last week saying all of
the ways in which they're going to look at these museums.
But before that, well, we have to be accountable for y'all.
And by we in this moment, I mean all America.
So really, maga, y'all, this is y'all. Is how you
are talking about the institutions that framed and founded this country.
So there's a conversation recently that was held on a

(50:15):
CNN show, and I want to go ahead and run
the clip that was uh that took place on that show.

Speaker 11 (50:23):
Have you looked at some of the things that slavery
was about to talk about?

Speaker 4 (50:28):
Forget, he's not whitewashing slavery, so he's not.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
He's not.

Speaker 4 (50:31):
No, he's not.

Speaker 11 (50:33):
And you cannot tie imperialism and racism and slavery did
just one race, which is pretty much what every single
exhibit does. Well, let's talk about the fact.

Speaker 4 (50:42):
That when you slavery in America was only.

Speaker 11 (50:47):
Less than two percent of white Americans own slaves, but
it was a system of slavery is thousands of years old.

Speaker 6 (50:55):
The first.

Speaker 4 (51:00):
You surprised, I'm really surprised.

Speaker 8 (51:04):
Do you realize, Jillian, I'm surprised that you're trying to
litigate who was the beneficiary of slavery.

Speaker 4 (51:10):
And I'm not. What I'm trying to tell you is the.

Speaker 8 (51:12):
Context of American history. In the context of American history,
what are you saying is incorrect by saying that white
people oppressing.

Speaker 11 (51:21):
Every single thing? Is like, oh no, no, no, this is
all because white people bad, and that's just not the truth.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
Like, for example, every.

Speaker 11 (51:31):
Single exhibit, I have a list of every single one,
like people migrated from Cuba because white people bad, not
because of pastory. Just know it's in there, That's what
I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (51:43):
You don't actually know what's in there?

Speaker 11 (51:44):
Do you know that when you walk in the door,
exactly first thing you have.

Speaker 6 (51:47):
Gay So we're not going to litigate those points because
they're not litigatable. What we are going to do now
is play Nicole to Nicole Hannah Jones response and we'll
get to that shortly. Andrew Gilla, let's play her response.

Speaker 9 (52:04):
I do not usually do.

Speaker 10 (52:05):
These videos, but as a creator of the sixteen nineteen
project and someone who has studied the history of slavery
for three decades, I could not let the viral CNN
clip of Jillian Michael's stand after first date that the
times are far too serious and dangerous for us to
lend our platforms to harmful nonsense. It's simply irresponsible with
everything that's happening in this country to have someone as

(52:26):
credentialists as Jillian Michaels on a major network show legitimizing
the erasure of our history.

Speaker 4 (52:33):
Now.

Speaker 10 (52:33):
I know, there have been some viral efforts to debunk
her claim that somehow slavery was a side institution in
the United States because less than two percent of white
people own slaves. But even those efforts, while valiant by
embracing this right wing framing, they still aren't really getting
to it. You see, this is how numbers and data,
though technically true, can also be lies. And this is

(52:55):
why we can't let bad faith actors set the parameters
of the debate or of our collective understanding. So please
bear with me, because this is a lot. Let's take
the fewer than two percent of white people own slaves
at face value, though we know that number is technically incorrect,
and let's apply that standard to any other industry. What

(53:16):
percentage of Americans own social media companies or technology companies
such as Apple. It's a tiny percentage.

Speaker 4 (53:23):
I'm doubtful if it's.

Speaker 10 (53:24):
Even one percent of Americans, And yet no one would
credibly argue that social media companies are not ubiquitous across
American life, that they don't play a major influence on
our political, social, and economic life in America. And in fact,
what we know is that more than seventy percent of
Americans use social media, though hardly any Americans own social

(53:46):
media platform. There's a reason that the heads of Meta,
Apple and Amazon, Google and x all took part in
Trump's inauguration festivities, with several of them standing on the
actual diies during Trump's inauguration.

Speaker 6 (53:59):
So, you know, I think this is important to do
because this is Nicole Hannah Jones fact check five days
after Jillian michaels is on the show, which gives ample
time for any media outlet, really to respond, any media outlet.
Maybe it's not just Abby's response, right, Like, maybe not,
But after Nicole Hannah Jones' post, Abby Phillips had this

(54:23):
to say on her show on Tuesday Night.

Speaker 8 (54:25):
Last week, on this show, a guest shocked the table
by arguing, in part that slavery in America can't just
be blamed on one race and that museums put too
much focus on the role of white people who participated
in that terrible institution. And now tonight that same argument
is being pushed by the President of the United States,

(54:46):
Donald Trump says that one of the reasons for his
crackdown on Smithsonian museums is quote, everything discussed is how
bad slavery was. What we try to do on this
program is create a platform for discussion and debate, debate
that reflects the very real differences that exist in this country.
It's what echo chambers in our society fail to do. Frankly,

(55:08):
but on this topic, it's important to say objectively slavery
was indeed bad.

Speaker 4 (55:18):
I'm not frozen.

Speaker 1 (55:19):
Yeah, I'm either.

Speaker 6 (55:20):
I'm just pausing to allow you all to weigh in
Andrew effect, do you want to answer whether or not
you believe slavery was bad and whether or not at
this in this day and age, that should be litigated.
We had Donald Trump's social post from Abby's screen. We
can also put that up if you all need to
read it. But he's very concerned with the fact that

(55:44):
we're spending a lot of time on wokeism, that the
Smithsonian is out of control, where everything discussed is how
horrible our country is, how bad slavery was. And I'd
love to know if you all have a silver lining
like Bill O'Reilly about how we were fed and slept well,
And I.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
Honestly, I think it's such it's so beneath our dignity
to even engage that I think to even debate it
legitimizes their perspective, which is part of the danger. And listen,
I feel very uncomfortable and awkward weighing in on this
for a few reasons. One, I know Abby. I've known

(56:24):
Abby for a long time and I like her personally,
so I want to be and I know you do too.
I want to be careful, like I'm not trying to
say this is all you know, like what Abby should
have done, Because I think this is a network issue.
Her show is not the only person who platforms problematic people.

(56:44):
The network itself does. And because y'all are listening to
some free blacks, listen, I'm gonna give this truth. And
you can invite me or not invite me on the
network ever. Again, I think we it. It is not
courage if there is not a sacrifice. It is not
valor if you don't have skin in the game. So

(57:05):
I think all three of us ain't never been scared
to speak an honest truth. And let corporate media. Deal
with it as you will, but we live in service
to a higher truth and one that does not engage
in debate with low life, half witted individuals who do
nothing but regurgitate talking points from the White House. And
that is what Gillian michaels the biggest loser is in

(57:29):
this moment. I think it's incredibly frightening that she's raising
a black child with that ignorant ass attitude. And I
detest her. I detest people who look who share her viewpoints.
I detest the people who voted for this administration. I
find them to be I just I don't honor or

(57:52):
respect their positions at all. And so to present some
of these things as though it is a debate, to
present this as though well, she says, you know that
slavery wasn't that bad, and she says that slavery was
really bad now you guys have at it. I think
that is a danger. And when I had a platform

(58:12):
on a major cable news network, I was willing to
risk it all before I would dare ever let somebody
sit on my set and say something that was one
disrespectful to another guest or disrespectful to our history and
our facts. That is the standard by which I hold myself.
I'm not arrogant enough to say what choices somebody else

(58:33):
should make. But I think to watch seeing in the
place where I began my career, to watch them devolve
into this Jerry Springer type atmosphere is disgusting. And then
when we step back and look at journalism as an industry,
how it has failed at the most important time, it
has failed and continues to fail. We never want to
acknowledge white supremacy. They talk about this immigration policy that

(58:56):
is the brainchild of Stephen Miller, who is a white supremacist.
An opinion is rooted in reporting by the Wall Street Journal.
It is widely known you will never hear an anchor
introduce or reference Steven Miller as a white supremacist. Why
for the comfort of white folks? And so many of
these discussions that I know what we talk about when
the cameras aren't on, But when the cameras come on,

(59:18):
people want to get polite, People want to both sides
things I don't do that. It's almost only one version
of Tiffany, and I can attest it's only one version
of Angela. It's only one version of Andrew. What we speak,
we mean, we walk it like we talk it, and
so I just think we have to have a higher
accountability of having those types of discussions in a way

(59:43):
that presents a lie and equates it with a fact,
that presents somebody with an opinion and equates them with
an expert. I have said on that very show across
from people who are neither my intellectual equal nor am
my professional equal on any level, and I just you know,
we talked about this before, angel and a lot of

(01:00:05):
the comments, thank you guys for weighing in, and I
so appreciate everybody's thoughts. A lot of the comments, they
were pretty mixed Angela. And I am respecting your boundary, Angela,
because you were clear on the last episode. I was
trying to like politely push and Angela was like, just
so I'm clear, So we don't have discuss this again.
I am not going on that show unless all three
of us go together. So I completely respect that boundary.

(01:00:27):
Beyond respecting the boundary, I respect you for having that
position in that boundary. There were people who are like Tiffany,
I love that you go on there because if it's nonsense,
at least you're somebody who's going to push back on that.
I gotta say, I feel torn. I feel really torn.
You reminded me, you said, because you said you would
never do that show. You reminded me of that, and
I remember getting so mad at you. I never told

(01:00:49):
you this, but you dropped in our group chat. You
guys Tiff is on it happy, and I was like,
don't tell people I'm on the show. That's how I
throw inside. Don't tell our friends I'm doing this show
because I did have some shape. But I love I mean,
I just I feel before Abby had this show, I
was so proud of her. I just I love her voice,
and I just think she's so beautiful and she has

(01:01:09):
such a great spirit. And I'm cheering for her because
we have too few black women on air, and I
fear if Abby goes away, then who will take her?
It'll be somebody worse, like do we want Scott Jennings
in that chair?

Speaker 7 (01:01:21):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
So that's all my jumble thoughts. Sorry for going on
so long about it, but I don't know. I really
want to hear because.

Speaker 6 (01:01:30):
People, even when they comment clearly they are torn like
I have. If I have to choose between you going
on or Candice Owens, duh, right, yeah, I if but
I think that we've entered if we've crossed the red line,
and you said the red line has been crossed one
hundred times, what is our boundary. I don't want to
make this again about whether or not we go on

(01:01:51):
the show. That is so besides the point. What I
think is really an issue now is we have been
reduced to the point of having a conversation about how slavery,
the history of slavery will be will be told in
our independent institutions, Some that we help, that we helped
to fund, some that we helped to build. Machissic and

(01:02:12):
mckissic was a key construction partner on the National Museum
of African American History and Culture. We are now at
the point where we are litigating the fact that white
people are responsible for the institution of slavery, for the
fact that white people are responsible for the Transatlantic slave trade.

(01:02:32):
I don't care if they were able to pick off
a few negroes. You all were able to do that
in modern day times. That's how Clarence got on the
Supreme Court.

Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
Who GI's are gonna do? Well?

Speaker 6 (01:02:44):
Who she's gonna do. We have talked about this, so
we're fine. We understand that. What we're not fine with.
What we don't understand is why we even give audience
to someone who would be so blatantly in and gaslight
us about the most traumatic incident in American history, the

(01:03:06):
most traumatic first centuries.

Speaker 4 (01:03:09):
It's like, what are we talking about? Right?

Speaker 6 (01:03:11):
So I think that really is it for me? And
now you know it's started with him. I don't know
if y'all remember when he ran in sixteen and Andrew.
I think Andrew over there writing a sermon.

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
I'm promised.

Speaker 3 (01:03:21):
I don't want to interrupt.

Speaker 4 (01:03:28):
No, no, I want to say I won't say this,
but I'm just thinking he's running if you know, I
really want to hear that.

Speaker 6 (01:03:37):
I'm just thinking, you know that we are in this
time where we have an obligation to not just speak truth,
but to speak truth to power, to call the thing
a thing, to hold these institutions that we have been
beholden to, that we have been dedicated consumers.

Speaker 4 (01:03:55):
Of, to account.

Speaker 6 (01:03:57):
We ain't had no protest on this, we ain't had
no met we have meetings when people were just fired
from the networks and wrote letters where's our meeting on
the obligation of these people to hold like it's not
a reality show.

Speaker 4 (01:04:11):
It is news. It's news, so let it be news.

Speaker 6 (01:04:14):
When Donald Trump was running the first time, y'all, and
they were asked, I think they asked him about Harriet
Tubman being on the twenty dollars bill, and he said
maybe the two dollar bill or something. We don't have
Harriet on the two or the twenty. And they took
her off the National Park Service website. And they're making
it more restrictive for us to get data from the census.

(01:04:34):
And now they're wondering if they should do the census
at all or if the Census should be private based
on the conversation we just had with Sherilyn. Right here
is where we are now. We are watching the erosion,
the destruction, the blowing up of all of the institutions
that we have built.

Speaker 4 (01:04:51):
With our blood soiled hands. This is not okay, we passed.
It's a state of emergency. We're passed. This is co read.
We're passed down the alarm. It isn't all out war.

Speaker 6 (01:05:04):
And that war is being like executed on our babies
in DC right now. And that's the test ground. They
are testing us, and y'all we are failing. She merely
gave us a D, what's lord and a F? I
guess we're We're not supposed to say that no more
on the show, but I want to know they honestly
can't say that there What other word can we use

(01:05:25):
for right now?

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
Get that be button ready because we're okay, Andrew, if
you ain't got at least one your response, we don't
want to hear.

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
I don't have any. I don't have any to get.

Speaker 4 (01:05:35):
I want to hear. Fay, I'll just.

Speaker 3 (01:05:40):
Say this one. I have fewer pearls to clutch.

Speaker 5 (01:05:43):
As it relates to the corporate media and how the
corporate media handles their business, it is not new. I've
been watching Jerry Springer on CNN for a very long time,
probably since I began consuming the news. I think to
make Abby Phillips, the object of the issue is a
misplacement of where we are to be putting our concern.

(01:06:07):
First of all, I said, and I apologize for interrupting,
but where did this woman license and get the license?
Julie the Michael's woman? What she got from Byron Donald's
a black man who sits in Congress, who is likely
going to be the Republican nominee for governor of Florida
with the endorsement of Donald Trump, who in blackface, got

(01:06:27):
out there telling us how good slavery was.

Speaker 3 (01:06:30):
For black folks.

Speaker 5 (01:06:32):
The Minstrel Show, live in and effect, right in front
of us, a black man, a grifter, telling us what
was good for us because we were fed and housed
and learned skills that we could then later apply to
jobs that black people would eventually come to doing this country.
So there's been a number.

Speaker 3 (01:06:54):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (01:06:55):
I'd be saying, this show is intended to get out
of the echo chamber. I never ever, ever want to
be again surprised on election night that there was a
whole half of the country that walked away with an
impression set of feelings that I had never heard, never thought,
didn't didn't didn't believe they would give credence to Abby,
as a host responded to the obscenity of an insaneness

(01:07:20):
of what this woman was was attempted to articulate. But
across American networks, news channels, radio stations, platforms, uh you
know that, on the Internet and otherwise, there are so
many places where those comments would not have even been
questioned because the listening audience from the hosts of the
people who tune in believe it, hook line and sinker.

(01:07:43):
There is a war on black people. That energy is
coming from somewhere. There is an audience for exactly this
kind of bullshit that that Michael spreads.

Speaker 3 (01:07:55):
But she's not the only one.

Speaker 5 (01:07:57):
We're getting it from black men and blackface who occupy
only white spaces and who only intend to represent the
interest the beliefs of white people who are at the
apex of all of this simply offended and don't want
their children to be offended by the history carried out
by their ancestors. This is about ego, and since they're

(01:08:20):
in position to check ego, they have they have every
intent to check it everywhere it appears. What I appreciate
is that now that we know that this narrative drives
fuels maybe a whole half of the country, then we
can be better prepared when we come into contact with

(01:08:40):
them about how we need to move, how we need
to flow, and what checking we need to do real,
live and in person when we hear it, because they're
not just whispering it amongst themselves. They're saying it directly
to you, listener, How are you checking them? How are
you setting the recordstraate Because the problem is a way

(01:09:01):
too big for any one personality to be able to
handle any one individual, and certainly a reluctant, if not
cooperative network right in our harm. So we have to
be the protectors of our harm. We have to be
the protectors of our history. And as I have children maticulating,
matriculating through the public school system and a state where
the governor doesn't want anything in the books or taught

(01:09:23):
verbally from the teachers that would bring offense to his children,
I goddamn know Jay and I both that we will
have an obligation to do all of the history lessons,
or to at least supplement every era of history as
my kids matriculate to it through it. Thank goodness, I
was a political science and history person because I love

(01:09:43):
it and I know it, and they're going to get it.
But I'm also appreciative to groups like Jack and Jail
who are taking it as part their responsibility amongst the
kids who participate there to bring real black history directly
to them if they're not getting it from the schools
that they pay for them to attend, or that they
attend publicly, and I think we've got to guard ourselves
up people to fill that void, because if they're not

(01:10:07):
doing it there and you ain't doing it at home,
God help our children when it comes to knowing your history.

Speaker 3 (01:10:13):
So it doesn't get repeated.

Speaker 6 (01:10:15):
Andrew, I really appreciate you lifting up the point about
this not being a responsibility that is solely at Abby's feed.

Speaker 4 (01:10:24):
I think that's important.

Speaker 6 (01:10:26):
Everybody on this show certainly supports her, but I think
that we are growing exhausted of watching this happen to
sister after sister, brother after brother, and it happens in
different ways. It's may manifest in different ways, but we
have to call the thing out. So I think the
question I would have for the audience is what does
it look like to support Abby in this moment and
for the other Abby's that still find themselves on air,

(01:10:47):
you know, in crosshairs to have to even go on
a show to say, I just want to be clear
for the record, slavery's bad. When Jillian Michaels is saying
white people bad, well, some of you all are have
up by virtue of the fact that you're on this
show saying what you're saying, white people bad, especially you, right,
so until you pass a different litmus test for what

(01:11:09):
it means to stand in the gap for your black
child or for your black friends, white people bad. And
if y'all can't understand the distinction, I don't know what
to tell you. Go to the Smithsonian before they change it.
Perhaps with that, I guess we can go to Cast
to Action.

Speaker 5 (01:11:22):
I just want to add to your request with just
to say, not only do you how you stand in
and support your folks, but also hold them accountable. That
question needs to be extended to every network you watch,
in every new station on that network that you watch,
where the hosts don't even check their guests when they
come out of left field, right field, middle of space

(01:11:43):
with their ideas, they've got to be more accountable to
us period. To Cherylyn's point about us out boxing our weight,
we have the power within ourselves to not just hold
folks who look like us accountable, but the networks we
watch subscribe to give money to, they get out advertising
dollars off of us. They ought to respect us enough
not to do that bullshit either, and we would.

Speaker 6 (01:12:05):
Expect ourselves enough not to give them the And that's
the part we do. I pray that we get to
the point we're only it doesn't have to be all
of us, but a small percentage of us do what
we need to do to ensure the tide changes. They
are not going to coward to us without a demand.

Speaker 4 (01:12:20):
We know that.

Speaker 6 (01:12:21):
Frederick Douglass told us that history lessons have told us
that over and over.

Speaker 4 (01:12:24):
Sorry too, but what does that mean?

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
Like what is our demand?

Speaker 4 (01:12:29):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:12:29):
Like what are we asking people to do? Is it
don't watch?

Speaker 10 (01:12:32):
Is it?

Speaker 9 (01:12:33):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:12:33):
I know you say, don't go on there? Like as
a cord cutting is at an all time high, particularly
in black households, and black people consume a lot of
media across all types of media, so we're already abandoning
cable news streaming is like yanking them down, which I
think is why we see some of these ridiculous tactics,
some of these people who are espousing ridiculous thoughts during

(01:12:55):
the you know, opinion hour at ten o'clock. You can
see them on CNN's morning show. You can see them
in the middle of the afternoon. So that that's why
I just try to caution people like like we're saying
this is not on ABBY, you know, like this is
and it's not just on CNN either, this is also MSNBC.
I don't even consider Fox, but you know this is

(01:13:18):
MS that's stupid ass name. But yes, but across networks,
not even just the cable news, but across networks. The
way that we normalize white supremacy for the comfort of
white people.

Speaker 6 (01:13:31):
Yeah, we can use that to transition into calls to action.
And I'll say that my call to action first would
be signed the petition to Protect the Integrity of the
National Museum of African American History and Culture. There is

(01:13:52):
a change dot org petition. We'll make sure that that's
in our show notes. Please hear me. I'm having a
broader conversation beyond cable news news, regular news, anybody news.
I'm talking about all of the things that we need
to do to hold these institutions accountable to properly serving us.
Let's start with the Smithsonian petition. Then we need to
be having meetings. There needs to be some folks who protest.

(01:14:13):
We need to make sure that our folks, folks are
very clear about the facts of their power and what
these institutions owe us.

Speaker 4 (01:14:19):
But let's start with the Smithsonian. Then I'll yield.

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
Did you tell just so, did you tell people how
they can sign the petition?

Speaker 4 (01:14:26):
Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 6 (01:14:26):
While you were typing, I said that it will make
sure we put it in the show notes.

Speaker 1 (01:14:30):
It's going to be in show notes. Okay, I have
a right, okay, because I was just about to say
change dot org. And I have a silly question like
when we say we're putting something in the show notes.

Speaker 6 (01:14:43):
We want you if you, if you, if you look,
if you actually ever listened to our show, folks at home,
you're going to go into the podcast. You'll click on
the podcast and there's a description, and the description is
where we normally direct people to action oriented items and
and that is also the case for YouTube, so on
the iHeart podcast app or if you go into Apple Podcasts,

(01:15:05):
in the description, you'll see any of our casts to action.

Speaker 4 (01:15:08):
There are things that you can do from home. Okay, sorry,
that was first I was.

Speaker 5 (01:15:14):
I was simply going to just admonish our listeners and
ourselves to just read just to quickly check back in
with Project twenty twenty five as well as you know
lessons around how to be an Autocrat because from the
Smithsonian trailing back to the beginning of the Trump days

(01:15:35):
in the White.

Speaker 6 (01:15:36):
House and the Smithsonian, I said, the Smithsonian does that.

Speaker 11 (01:15:43):
Bad?

Speaker 5 (01:15:44):
Well, you know, but but but from the Smithsonian, pulling
all the way back to the beginning of this administration.
One thing that they that we will never be able
to accuse them of of not saying the plan out loud.
Not only has it been said, it's been written, and
there is no harm in reading it to know what

(01:16:05):
is coming down the pike. As we said on the
other show a couple of weeks ago, when if you
stay ready, you don't have to get ready, and we
were talking about that in relation to the cities that
have already been name checked around an invasion from the
federal government and their likely brothers sister states that want
to go in using their law enforcement bodies to again

(01:16:27):
harass and terrorize our people in our communities. I simply
say to update ourselves so that we can then steady
ourselves for it. We can steady ourselves for the fight.
And when I say steady ourselves, I don't mean withstand it.
I mean withstand it, yes, but also mean fight back,
prepare to fight back, be ready so you don't have

(01:16:47):
to get ready.

Speaker 1 (01:16:49):
Well, now, I'm ashamed of my CTA, but there's one
I've given before and I feel the need to give
it again because it's getting a bit outrageous, and that
is speakerphones. I don't know if people didn't the first time,
but people seem to think that, well, it's my kid,
and my kid is playing with his iPad on the train.

(01:17:09):
You know, I take the Asella all the time and
so on amtrak these and I don't care if it's
your kid. They need to have headphones on. We don't
want to hear cartoons. And if we're sitting in the airport,
get off speaker phone. I don't want to want you
next to meek like, use your earphones. Nobody wants to
hear that. I know these are serious times, but this
is a serious annoyance and frustration.

Speaker 3 (01:17:29):
To mine, Yes to mine during these times, trying to.

Speaker 1 (01:17:32):
Be them listening to music, and I got just it's
so obnoxious. Stop doing that. I felt bad that I
I don't care that the kids.

Speaker 3 (01:17:40):
What tell me, you said, we don't want to hear cartoons.

Speaker 5 (01:17:43):
We want to hear. When the kids realized that we
had the TVs in the car and that they could
watch their shows wherever we were going to.

Speaker 3 (01:17:49):
School or on a long trip.

Speaker 5 (01:17:50):
Of course, our lives became about listening to cartoons and
other nonsense. I broke the ones in my car and
they have not worked since my kids.

Speaker 3 (01:17:58):
Were I don't know, very very young. And now when
they're like, Daddy, can we listen to this?

Speaker 5 (01:18:04):
But no, that daddy's TV is don't work, I'm not mad.
I tried to get all you to do the same,
but because she's always complaining, I was like, I'm that person.

Speaker 1 (01:18:11):
I walked down there because I'm like, who is playing this?
And I go and I don't care if his little
family if like, oh, they don't have their headphones, Like,
I'm sorry, but on the Amtrak you have to have
devices that come with earphones. We got them read it
was not the quiet car, because I shouldn't have to
ride in the quiet car, because yes, you have to

(01:18:31):
have it on answer you know. Of course I looked
at the rules. I'm a lawyer, a TV lawyer. As
we discussed, I looked at the rule you have to
have an Amtrak Maybe you all should start making this
a part of the announcement, so I don't have to
because I don't work for Amtrak.

Speaker 6 (01:18:46):
Maybe you could start and you could be like, I'm
not the conductor, but I'm about to conduct some business.
And speaking of conducting business, I'm about this, I'm about
to shame Nick real quick, you guys. So Trav is
one of our is one of our new producers. And
Trav said and that you got your excited with Andrew,
and so Trash says, turn up Andrew, and the Knick's
response was done. F YI, The in studio levels only

(01:19:07):
affect the live conversation. The recording we get afterward is unaffected.
And Trav was like, sorry, that was not an audio.

Speaker 4 (01:19:17):
I don't even know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:18):
Where this was going.

Speaker 4 (01:19:19):
That is hilarious. Wait cut that out. If you cut
it out, we cutting you out and we.

Speaker 3 (01:19:24):
Leave this show.

Speaker 4 (01:19:28):
Well, that is hilarious.

Speaker 6 (01:19:30):
This is actually a perfect way in the show because
learning ebonics and slang is a very important factor in
terms of how we blend the democracy, tying it right
back into Sherylyn, I gotta understand what we mean when
we're talking that talk and talking.

Speaker 1 (01:19:46):
I don't like that, honestly, no, I do not. I
don't mind if Andrew.

Speaker 6 (01:19:53):
Is going to be screaming in the show because there
was a misunderstanding.

Speaker 4 (01:19:56):
So I just want to make sure.

Speaker 1 (01:19:57):
Because I like our the things that we say to
each other that is understood. I don't I think there
is fine. We'll let Nick, we'll Nick know about this. Well,
this might be something to talk about on the mini pod.
I don't think it is good. I don't want everybody
to understand something. If I'm at Angela's house, I'm like, girl,
you put your foot in these greens. I don't want
to explain that everybody. Andrew Gellham, now, why don't you

(01:20:21):
answer it on speaker so you can make my point?

Speaker 4 (01:20:23):
All right?

Speaker 5 (01:20:24):
And were welcome, all y'all welcome.

Speaker 1 (01:20:28):
Oh wait, I have to say, how many ridiculous days
there are? I got a bunch of stuff, tells Sherilyn.

Speaker 4 (01:20:34):
Now, she would have got you together on that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:37):
That is a good question.

Speaker 3 (01:20:38):
That's a good question.

Speaker 1 (01:20:39):
We'll have her back when we get We'll have her
back to talk about that. But there are four hundred
and thirty nine days until midterm elections, and as always,
we've reminded you a few times throughout the show, but
it really does us a solid when you share, like, subscribe,
do all the things because we come here every day
living in service to you, so we want to make
sure that you guys are spreading the word. We're available

(01:21:00):
on all podcast platforms and YouTube, and if you're looking
for more shows like ours, please check out other shows
on Recent Choice media, including Politics with Jamel Hill. Ps.
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but that's all I'll say about that. No time for
my sports takes today. I'm off the Cup with se
Cup and our newest edition, who you guys know because

(01:21:22):
we had them on this show now you know, with
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(01:21:43):
that native lampod dot com. We are Angela Rii, Andrews
Gillum and Tiffany Cross. Welcome home, y'all.

Speaker 2 (01:21:57):
Showing the Natives attention of what the info and on
all of the latest rock Gulum and Cross connected to
the statements that you leave on our socials. Thank you
sincerely for the patients reason for your choice is cleared, so.

Speaker 3 (01:22:09):
Grateful it took to execute roads.

Speaker 2 (01:22:12):
Thank you for serve, defend and protect the truth, even
if pat go walking home. To all of the natives,
we thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:22:29):
Native Lampod is a production of iHeart Radio and partnership
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Andrew Gillum

Angela Rye

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